"The focus is on retail business and the company expect that segment to grow going forward. It is our internal target for retail to grow at 20%," said Sukumar Srinivas, Managing Director, Shankara Building Products.

The company posted a good set of earnings in the retail business, while the channel and enterprise business was flat and did not see any improvement.

In the retail segment, the company added about 23 stores last year and will add 15-20 stores this year, said Srinivas. On an average, a store would breakeven in a year’s time, he said.

With regards to margins, Shankara Building Products would like to stick to the 6-7% range at an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) level, although there is always a potential of improving them further, said Srinivas.

Talking about non-retail business, he said they are not looking at demerger or hiving off but the channel and enterprise business would degrow.

The year-on-year revenues in the fourth quarter were up 26.7% at Rs 760.81 crore against Rs 600.4 crore. EBITDA was up 20.4% at Rs 54.08 crore against Rs 44.93 crore.

First Published:May 11, 2018 12:09 PM IST